We've all seen representations of Shiva, the many-armed Hindu god, his
multiple hands in several different attitudes, holding symbols of life and
death, while he simultaneously dances and meditates. Humans are at least
touched by the divine: We often work at more than one thing at a time, despite
the fact that we have only two hands. We can switch between tasks fairly
rapidly.

The PC is burdened with a one-track mind. A typical PC operating under MS-DOS
is designed to take on a single task, complete it, and move to its next
assignment.

People, however, are rarely afforded the luxury of dedicating themselves to
one task and one task only. More commonly, we find our attention jumping
around among multiple projects. We may, for instance, be working on last
year's annual sales report and next year's budget at the same time, but
yesterday's PC running yesterday's software can't even keep up with this
relatively simple mental juggling act.

If you could transform your single-tasking DOS-based PC into a multitasking
tool, would you be interested?

The good news is that this can be accomplished with relative ease and at a
surprisingly low cost.

Equally important, since both DESQview and Windows themselves run under DOS,
they permit you to multitask virtually any DOS application already on the
market. By contrast, OS/2, Microsoft's much-touted second-generation operating
system, requires that you replace your current DOS applications with all new
software (much of which has yet to be written) before you'll be able to take
full advantage of its multitasking capabilities.

Despite their shared goal of adding the ability to multitask to your PC
arsenal, DESQview and Windows differ radically in many critical areas. But
before looking at these differences, let's examine one of the most obvious
similarities between DESQview and Windows--specifically, the basic technique
used by both programs to accomplish the feat of multitasking under DOS.

Sleight of Hand

To get an idea of how DESQview and Windows work, you need look no farther than
your kitchen. Suppose you had to prepare a three-course meal on a
single-burner hot plate. One way to accomplish this would be to complete each
course before starting the next. Unfortunately, by the time the final course
was ready, the food prepared first would be too cold to serve (assuming that
vichyssoise was not on the menu).

But what if, instead, you heated up the first course for a short time, then
removed it and began cooking the second? Several minutes later, you'd replace
the second course with the third. After a bit, you could remove the third
course and go back to heating up the first, then replace the first with the
second, the second with the third, and so on--continuing to dedicate a short
period of burner time to each course until all three items were adequately
cooked.

Using this technique, your entire dinner would be ready to serve at
approximately the same time, with none of your guests ever suspecting that you
had been forced to prepare their three-course meal on a single burner.

Both DESQview and Windows use a variation on this technique (called time
slicing) to multitask programs running under DOS. By providing CPU time in
round-robin fashion to however many programs you have loaded into RAM,
DESQview and Windows fool each application into thinking that it, and it
alone, has exclusive access to your system resources. Furthermore, this
prestidigitation occurs at such a rapid pace that you'll barely be aware that
it's happening.

There are similarities in the ways Windows and DESQview manipulate your CPU,
but what sets them apart from one another? Let's begin with their appearance.

Words of Pictures

DESQview eschews the colorful displays and stylized icons that define a
graphical user interface (GUI) like Windows, opting instead for a spartan
interface not very different from the one employed by MS-DOS.

All DESQview display elements (command options, pull-down menu boxes, window
borders, and the like are generated using the standard PC character set on the
text screen. DESQview is perfectly capable of running graphics programs in a
multitasking session; only DESQview's toplevel user interface is limited to
character-based operation.

Windows, on the other hand, relies on a bitmapped display, where each picture
element (pixel) must be individually controlled. A typical VGA display is
composed of over 300,000 pixels. As you might suspect, the added resources
required to manage the graphical Windows display can slow a system down
considerably. Therefore, DESQview gets the nod over Windows at least as far as
speed is concerned.

However, a GUI such as Windows has several advantages over a character-based
operating environment. GUIs are generally easier to learn and use. These
factors take on added significance on a system used by newcomers to PCs. And
the fact that one Windows program bears at least a passing resemblance to
another makes retraining less troublesome when it comes time to upgrade or
change applications.

Iconoclast

With the recent release of Windows 3.0, Microsoft finally delivered on its
longstanding promise to provide a true graphical interface for DOS-based
personal computers. The result is an operating environment that even PC
neophytes should have little trouble navigating, once they've mastered a few
basic techniques.

Windows' reliance on icons, mouse support, and pull-down menus greatly
simplifies most PC operations. Starting an application in Windows, for
example, is a simple matter of positioning a mouse pointer over that
application's icon and then double-clicking the mouse button. This
point-and-click paradigm carries over into virtually all areas of Windows
operations.

If you've ever worked in standard DOS, the command COPY/V C: \ TEMP \ BUDGET90
D: \LOTUS \ DATA \ will look depressingly familiar. This kind of command
structure--in this case, a relatively simple command whose sole purpose is to
copy a file from one DOS directory to another--can induce nightmares in people
just learning how to use a PC. By contrast, performing this same COPY
operation under Windows is as easy as dragging an icon associated with the
BUDGET90 file from its initial location on the Windows display to a second
window representing the destination directory. In short, Windows simplifies
DOS operations to such a degree that computer journalists can now legitimately
include the words intuitive and PC in the same sentence.

To be fair, DESQview's pulldown menus and dialog boxes also simplify PC
operations. In terms of user friendliness, however, Windows takes the blue
ribbon.

Moving into Multitasking

The goal of any multitasking environment is to permit you to run multiple
applications under DOS. Therefore, multitasking is the most critical area for
comparison between DESQview and Windows. How well does each program set up and
manage a multitasking session?

The flippant answer to this question is, quite well. Admittedly, DESQview and
Windows had their share of growing pains through the years. Both take some
potentially risky liberties with DOS's native, single-tasking architecture.
Early releases of each package were not always 100-percent dependable,
especially when it came to managing so-called misbehaved
programs--applications that bypassed the standard BIOS routines to improve
their performance.

Subsequent upgrades of both DESQview and Windows have eliminated most of these
incompatibility problems. With rare exceptions, both DESQview and Windows are
now capable of handling virtually and DOS program.

I've been working with the latest versions of both DESQview and Windows 3.0
for several months and have yet to encounter a conflict that could not be
resolved with a relatively minor adjustment to either the multitasking
environment itself or the problematic application program.

Since they're roughly equal in technical proficiency, the choice between
DESQview and Windows boils down to a personal one based on how you'll use a
multitasking environment rather than all the possible uses to which such an
environment can be applied.

The Machine Matters

Given the strain time slicing places on your system's CPU, it only makes sense
that the kind of computer system you own will influence the overall
performance of your multitasking environment.

DESQview will run on any IBM-compatible PC, including 8088- or 8086-based
XT-compatible systems having only 512K of RAM. Of course, multitasking on such
a system would be severely limited; all your multitasking programs would have
to fit within 512K. You'd have trouble finding programs of consequence that
would take up so little room.

Windows will run--in real mode--on an 8088 or 8086 machine with 640K, but real
mode has the same limitation as we found in DESQview: All the multitasking
programs must fit entirely within the 640K of conventional memory. You can
multitask programs designed to run under Windows (these programs are sometimes
described as Windows-aware) using extended memory under Windows in standard
mode, which, at minimum, requires an 80286-based AT with at least one megabyte
of memory, including at least 256K of extended memory. But once again, all the
multitasking programs must fit within 640K of conventional memory. If you want
to multitask DOS programs under Windows, your minimum system must be an 80386
with two megabytes of RAM. These three aspects of Windows are covered in full
in the accompanying article "Three Faces of Windows."

Of course, the more advanced your PC, the more efficiently it will multitask,
regardless of whether you ultimately settle on DESQview or Windows--or even a
combination of the two (see "The Best of Both World").

The performance of DESQview improves dramatically when it's run on a 80286 AT
compatible. And both programs are designed to take full advantage of the
advanced memory-management features built into Intel's 80386 and 80486
microprocessors.

DESQview users will need to buy a second program--Quarterdeck's $59 QEMM-386
memory manager--to accomplish this (these products can be bought as a set),
while the basic Windows package includes everything required to run Windows
efficiently on any IBM-compatible computer (see "Three Faces of Windows").

Making the Choice

In some situations, choosing between DESQview and Windows is a relatively
straightforward proposition. If you work exclusively with standard,
character-based DOS applications--that is, programs not specifically designed
to run under Windows--then DESQview is the logical choice.

The great speed of the DESQview text-based interface makes this decision on
easy one. Additionally, DESQview is slightly more utilitarian if your PC is an
8088- or 8086-based XT compatible and the only choice if your computer lacks a
graphics adaptor capable of running the Windows GUI or has only 512K.

On the other hand, Windows offers the user-friendly attributes commonly
associated with GUIs: icons, point-and-click procedures, interactive dialog
boxes, and the like. If you're new to personal computing and want to avail
yourself of the advantages of multitasking, it's hard to imagine a DOS
environment easier to install, learn, or use than Windows 3.0.

Given Windows' graphical interface, it's also the logical choice if you work
primarily in graphics-based applications such as desktop publishing, CAD, draw
programs, and the like--especially if the specific programs you use for these
activities are Windows-aware.

The third alternative is a mix-and-match environment, where you use both
standard DOS and Windows applications. In this case, the choice of whether to
organize you multitasking under DESQview or Windows requires a little more
thought.

DESQview handles both character-based and graphics programs with equal ease.
Its speed and flexibility should influence your decision.

However, accessing some of DESQview's more advanced features requires a level
of technical knowledge surpassing that demanded by Windows 3.0. Unlike
DESQview and, to a certain degree, earlier versions of Windows itself, Windows
3.0 puts its own house in order. It places few demands on the user.

In the final analysis, Windows and DESQview perform exactly as promised,
bringing almost divine power to the world of silicon. Each endows DOS with the
ability to multitask. Regardless of which one you choose, adding multitasking
capability to your system will improve your efficiency and increase your
overall PC productivity. It will allow your computer to work efficiently on
multiple projects at your own pace. And that, after all, is what using a
personal computer is all about. [Tabular Data Omitted]

Context Switching and Multitasking

Context switching is an alternative to multitasking. If you often want to
access more than one application during the course of your normal PC
operations but you don't need to have these applications running when they
aren't in view, context switching (also known as task switching) may be what
you need.

Context switching differs from multitasking in that only a single program is
actually executing code at any given time, even if multiple applications have
been loaded into memory. If you're using context-switching software and access
one program, any other application running in that session is temporarily
suspended, and a snapshot of its current operation is maintained in memory or
stored to a disk file. Calling up one of the suspended applications causes it
to be shuffled back into active RAM and once again made operational.

For example, one popular context-switching program, Switch-It (Better Software
Technology, 55 New York Avenue, Framingham, Massachusetts 01701; 800-848-0286;
$99.95), lets you load up to 100 programs in a 640K system--providing, of
course, that you have enough free disk space or expanded memory (EMS) to
support program swapping on such a large scale.

In truth, context switching resembles using the hold button on a multiline
telephone. While it's not possible to carry on more than one conversation at a
time under such conditions, you can quickly switch your attention between two
or more callers. Context switching provides a convenience to people who don't
require full multitasking but would profit from quick and easy access to
several DOS applications.

Three Faces of Windows

Starting with Windows 3.0, Microsoft eliminated the need to buy different
versions of Windows for different PC systems. Rather than existing as discrete
products (like Windows/286 and Windows/386), Windows 3.0 can configure itself
to run in one of three operational modes: real, standard, and 386 enhanced.

Get Real

When running in real mode, Windows 3.0 is limited to performing all of its
multitasking operations in that 640K block of memory commonly referred to as
conventional RAM.

If the total memory required by the programs you're using exceeds 640K,
Windows automatically reverts to context switching rather than multitasking
(see "Context Switching and Multitasking"). Windows 3.0 automatically
configures itself to operate in real mode on any system that has less than one
megabyte of RAM.

New Standard

When running in standard mode, Windows can transfer some of its operations to
extended memory. This increases the amount of conventional RAM available to
actually run standard DOS applications. A second major benefit to running
Windows in standard mode is that it actually allows text-based programs that
employ standard DOS extenders to run in so-called protected mode, thus
effectively breaking that infamous 640K DOS barrier. (Perhaps the best know
program that currently employs DOS extenders is Lotus 1-2-3 release 3.)

Peak Performance

The ultimate Windows configuration is 386-enhanced mode. In addition to
supporting all of the features associated with running Windows in standard
mode, 386-enhanced mode takes advantage of the advanced memory-management
capabilities built into Intel's 80386 and 80486 microprocessors. Primary among
these is their ability to use extended memory to set up so-called virtual 8086
machines--discrete segments of RAM that function as if they were isolated
8086-based XT-compatible systems.

Generally, Windows itself determines its best operating mode for your system
hardware. However, by including the appropriate command switch with the WIN
command normally used to start Windows, you can override this default
configuration. Starting a multitasking session with a WIN /R command, for
example, forces Windows to run in real mode.

The Best of Both Worlds

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: It's possible to set up Windows
3.0 so that it will run under DESQview. Why would you ever want to do this?
That's easy. Running Windows within a DESQview multitasking session allows you
to access most of the advanced features associated with each of these DOS
multitasking environments--the best of both worlds.

You'll be able to run the impressive Windows-aware programs currently flooding
the PC market (Arts & Letters: Excel; Ventura Publisher, Windows Edition; Ami
Professional; Word for Windows; Microphone II, and so forth) and still take
advantage of the fact that DESQview will execute and switch between standard
DOS applications more quickly than its graphics-based competition.

The most critical caveat attached to setting up this hybrid configuration is
that, at the time of this writing, the only way to avoid conflicts with
Windows is to run it in real mode. Rumor has it, however, that a planned
DESQview upgrade will be compatible with all three Windows modes.